June Grand Prix 2024

Getting defensive

Gotta love the timing on this. I am currently icing my back from a battle training session with Chan who was quoted in my previous post. I hadn’t done this in almost a year. Back then, I was prepping for the June 2024 GP.

I had made my way to the Torrance track on a Monday night. It was dead, but there were two familiar faces. Chan and his practice partner Greg were keeping the track hot chasing each other down. They pulled me in for a session of defensive driving drills a.k.a battle training. The idea is they would knock me around trying to get me off my line. This is something Kimi and I never thought to do. Just because we have our code of conduct doesn’t mean anyone else does.

I will issue a warning now, this shit hurts. You’re going to take big, nasty, dirty style hits over and over again. In a typical GP you might take one or two before a flag comes out. You have to learn to anticipate them and react accordingly. No time to throw your hands in the air to signal to the staff you’re getting banged up. You have to maintain your line. As Chan and Greg went to work I gave them no reaction. Not so much as a glance. As far as I was concerned these were just bumps on the track. Putting a person behind the damage makes it personal and I didn’t want to attach that kind of emotion to it. I left that night begging for an ice pack.

Day of the GP arrives. This was where I could put all the coaching I had received to work. For the qualis, I was FAST. I felt smooth and confident out there. I scored 2nd in the B group for the final. This was a little spooky, I had never been up there before. Kimi wasn’t too far behind in 4th. Part of me was hoping he'd stay close while the other part was worried he could take my position. At the start of the race, the pack got thick and he fell away. There was both relief and fear, he had left me with the lunatics.

There were a few different tough guys that took their turns trying to knock me out of 2nd. Couldn’t tell you who they were, again, I didn’t wanna make this personal. The joke was, after everything Chan and Greg put me through, I barely felt anything. Thus far I hadn’t tasted the podium and that night I wasn’t gonna accept anything less. I finally managed to pull away from the pack. Now I could switch from my ugly defensive line to my sleek fast line. Those last three laps of quiet were heavenly. I realized it’s this moment that you’re fighting for. It felt like it was just me out there as I finished in second.

I finally nabbed my first medal and while I was in the slower group, I was feeling ambitious. The fast boys at the track had been running 27 second laps for months. I was stuck at 28 and decided I wanted a 27 second summer. I also wanted to conquer more tracks. Kimi and I were due for a field trip.